Yesterday afternoon I had an appointment I couldn’t miss, so I left my husband on the front porch with a book to wait for the UPS delivery truck. Before you think I’m unjustifiably cruel, let me tell you about the UPS deliveries in our neighborhood. UPS will come to the door, knock once and as the knuckles are grazing the door the driver is already turning to leave. I sometimes think that the only sound I hear is that of the driver putting the We missed you slip on the front door. I’m sure our Machiavellian driver is laughing like mad as the truck pulls away from our house. Denny, the aforementioned husband on the porch, has run after the truck screaming like a mad man to get the truck to stop on more than one occasion. Suffice it to say, if I didn’t post him out of the front porch, I would not be in possession of my Kindle today. My Kindle 2 arrived about 5 minutes before I returned home. There awaiting my arrival home was the smiling Amazon.com box. After putting down my things, I grabbed my small scissors and cut the tape holding the flaps down. Inside were two brown sturdy boxes which have the zip to open feature. The reason for the two boxes is I also purchased a cover for the Kindle because otherwise I might inadvertently hurt it. To heighten the anticipation of the moment when I saw my K2 for the first time, I opened the cover first.

I am actually quite impressed with the cover. On the original Kindle, I didn’t like the cover it came with. It was pretty much a leather jacket with elastic bands to attempt to keep the Kindle within. The cover wasn’t even as wide as the Kindle (1), so the edges stuck out making the propensity to hit the Next page button a likely occurrence. This cover is different. On the inside spine of the cover are two doo-hickeys which allow you to snap the K2 into place, and it doesn’t fall out, even if I just hold it by the edge.

Next, the moment I had been waiting for. I unzipped the box holding my K2. The way Amazon.com packages the Kindle, it appears to be thicker than what it actually is. I tried to prepare by looking at photos of the K2 all over the internet, but somehow, I still wasn’t prepared for the thinness in actuality. If they make it any thinner, it simply won’t be there. Once you put it into a cover, however, it feels just like a slim volume book. Once I had it in my hands, forget the quick start guide that comes with it, forget learning about how to use it, forget checking to see whether it needed to be charged first – I just had to turn it on.

As I think I may have mentioned, I pre-sent Misfit McCabe to my K2, so as soon as I turned it on there was my book, which was a very satisfying feeling. I also downloaded the Smashwords Kindle version of Misfit McCabe so I could compare the two versions. The top picture is the version which was formatted using the Amazon Digital Text Platform (DTP) service and the second picture is the Smashwords version. They both look very similar, except the DTP version has more left white space than the Smashwords version. This was entirely my fault being so new to the game when I did the DTP version. I have corrected several formatting errors with DTP, but have not purchased the book again so I can see the newer version in action.

The font is the same in both pics. The more words per line has to do with the margin width on the Amazon/DTP version vs. the Smashwords version. And just so everyone is clear, the margin issue was my formatting and not DTP. I’m going to have to check to make sure I’ve fixed that

Start saving your pennies – I know this is something that you’ll have to have. I started reading one of the books I’m reviewing on it last night (the PDF conversion went great). You’ll be in heaven once you get yours.